It’s Okay to Be Lonely as Long as You’re Free

1102017

Today’s title comes from a Rich Mullins song. If you don’t know the Rich Mullins story, or you don’t know the following song, at the very least, please listen to that song, or research a little bit about him and his life.

I love that line that I reference in the title.

Something that Rich knew all too well, is the loneliness of life. Many people know about the loneliness of life. You see singles post about it on Facebook around Valentine’s Day. Weddings always have the single people lining up to catch the trophy in hopes that they will be next. Singleness as a calling is discarded in favor of creating a family and sharing your life with another person. A lot of people will moan and complain about being lonely, and how they have no one to share it with. People will slip into a depression over their loneliness.

Even people in relationships find themselves lonely too! And this is the reason that I write today’s entry. Despite the fact that I am in a loving, healthy relationship, I too, experience the pangs of loneliness. I too, deal with the worrisome condition that plagues all of humanity. My loneliness doesn’t just disappear because I’m in a relationship. And it’s nothing on the fault of the other party or the nature of our relationship….honestly, loneliness is a concept that exists beyond just being in a relationship.

Loneliness, like sadness, is a universal feeling. You’ll experience it many times in your life. Regardless of marital status, loneliness can hit you. Many people use other people to cover up their loneliness, or to make them feel not so alone. Unfortunately, this is a band-aid over a bullet hole type of solution. Having someone there does not permanently solve the problem of loneliness or eliminate the feeling. You can even be lonely when you’re with other people. That’s been me this week. I’m surrounded by wonderful people. I love the people I work with. I like my job most days. I’m constantly improving and getting better at my craft. I’m very happy at work. And then the bell rings, the kids go home, the classroom is empty and I’m alone.

At first, the pang of loneliness wasn’t like a wave. It was just a twinge. A small droplet of emotion. I could curb it. But if you allow enough drops to build up over time, it becomes a bathtub full of water. And that bathtub becomes a wave when the drops become rushing amounts of water. There’s nothing to do about it, but to let yourself drown in it. In that moment, as I experienced this week, it’s hard to understand why the emotion you’ve pushed down for so long suddenly breaks and you have to figure out how to live with it. I’ve been hyper aware of my loneliness this week.

I think loneliness because it is a universal emotion, and because we experience it when we’re around people, I think it’s a deeper issue than just being alone. I think there’s something more to it. I think these loneliness pangs point us to another fact about ourselves entirely, that this loneliness is a longing for something. It’s a longing for completion, it’s a longing to be whole. It’s a longing for something else, something we can’t quite put our hearts on, or understand.

I think it’s a longing for heaven, a longing to be restored from our sinful tendencies to what we were meant to be. We were not meant to be alone, or to have this lonely feeling, but I think that we were meant to experience completion and wholeness, but sin robbed that from us. I think that this loneliness pang that we all feel is just another reminder that this life is not what it was intended to be, and it is a residue left behind to remind us of what we were supposed to be. I think it’s a longing for peace. I think it’s a longing for communion with other people, deep communion, that’s why we are so adamant to finding someone with whom we won’t be alone with. I think it’s a longing for community, friendship that doesn’t hurt, love that doesn’t die. It’s a longing for an absence of fear, and continual trust that things won’t go wrong, but they will go for the better. I think it’s a longing that we have to see the real self, and who we were meant to be, and not what we are.

I think we can learn from loneliness. Rich did. Obviously, he struggled with loneliness, and throughout the duration of his life, he tried to fill up that loneliness with other things. But finally, he accepted it as a symptom of his human condition, a side-effect of humanity. I admire him for that. It takes a lot of strength, strength I don’t currently have, to face your loneliness and realize that you’ll never be un-lonely. That loneliness is a current state of being that is permanent, until death and restoration.

My prayer is that when you are lonely, you take a lesson from Rich and deal with it, and let yourself experience it, and find solace in the love of Jesus. Don’t take a lesson from me, where you’re stubborn and you pass the blame and you cry yourself to sleep without seeking the guidance of God. Hopefully, I’ve made a turning point with this, and will learn from Rich, and will learn from his life. And hopefully, one day, I will befriend my loneliness and accept it as what I say it is, pulsings to remind me of my heavenly connection.